WEEK 8

The photo above is of Ramses II, from the British Museum (Wikimedia Commons). The following is from "Ozymandias" (Wikipedia):

Younger Memnon statue of Ramesses II in the British Museum. Its imminent arrival in London may have inspired [Shelley's poem "Ozymandias"]. ... The banker and political writer Horace Smith spent the Christmas season of 1817–1818 with Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Shelley. At this time members of Shelley's literary circle would sometimes challenge each other to write competing sonnets on a common subject … Shelley and Smith chose a passage from the Greek Historian Diodorus Siculus, which described a massive Egyptian statue and quoted its inscription: "King of Kings Ozymandias am I. If any want to know how great I am and where I lie, let him outdo me in my work." In the poem Diodorus becomes "a traveller from an antique land" (Siculus, Diodorus, Bibliotheca Historica, 1.47.4). … In antiquity, Ozymandias (Ὀσυμανδύας) was a Greek name for the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II. Shelley began writing his poem in 1817, soon after the announcement of the British Museum's acquisition of a large fragment of a statue of Ramesses II from the thirteenth century BC, leading some scholars to believe that Shelley was inspired by this. The 7.25-ton fragment of the statue's head and torso had been removed in 1816 from the mortuary temple of Ramesses at Thebes by Italian adventurer Giovanni Battista Belzoni. It was expected to arrive in London in 1818, but did not arrive until 1821. ... Smith's poem was published in The Examiner a few weeks after Shelley's sonnet. Both poems explore the fate of history and the ravages of time: that all prominent figures and the empires that they build are impermanent and their legacies fated to decay into oblivion.

Ozymandias (Horace Smith)

In Egypt's sandy silence, all alone,Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throwsThe only shadow that the Desert knows:—"I am great OZYMANDIAS," saith the stone,"The King of Kings; this mighty City shows"The wonders of my hand."— The City's gone,—Nought but the Leg remaining to discloseThe site of this forgotten Babylon.

We wonder,—and some Hunter may expressWonder like ours, when thro' the wildernessWhere London stood, holding the Wolf in chace,He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guessWhat powerful but unrecorded raceOnce dwelt in that annihilated place

Ozymandias (Shelly)

I met a traveller from an antique landWho said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stoneStand in the desert. Near them on the sand,Half sunk, a shattered visage* lies, whose frown * faceAnd wrinkled lip and sneer of cold commandTell that its sculptor well those passions readWhich yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.And on the pedestal these words appear:“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”Nothing beside remains: round the decayOf that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Dresden, Germany, before and after the Allied bombing of this city which had no military target and was an asylum for war refugees (from https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/04/09/pictures-of-dresden-before-and-after-the-wwii-bombing-3/). The Allies bombed from Feb 13-15, 1945 -- more or less on Valentine's Day...

A still from Amistad, Spielberg, 1997

WEEK 9

Caliban (from The Arrivants, 1973)

Ninety-five per cent of my people poorninety-five per cent of my people blackninety-five per cent of my people deadyou have heard it all before O Leviticus O Jeremiah O Jean-Paul Sartre*

* Leviticus & Jeremiah: Old Testament books; Jeremiah was called the weeping prophet; Camus and Sartre (1905-1980) are the two most famous French existentialists.

and now I see that these modern palaces have grownout of the soil, out of the bad habits of their crippled ownersthe Chrysler stirs but does not produce cottonthe Jupiter purrs but does not produce bread

out of the living stone, out of the living boneof coral, these deadtowers; out of the coneyislands of our mind-

less architects, this deathof sons, of songs, of sunshine; out of this dearth of coo ru coos, home- less pigeons, this perturbation that does not signal health.

In Havana that morning, as every morning, the police toured the gambling houseswearing their dark glassesand collected tribute;

And limbo stick is the silence in front of melimbolimbolimbo like melimbolimbo like melong dark night is the silence in front of melimbolimbo like mestick hit soundand the ship like it readystick hit soundand the dark still steadylimbolimbo like melong dark deck and the water surrounding melong dark deck and the silence is over melimbolimbo like mestick is the whipand the dark deck is slaverystick is the whipand the dark deck is slaverylimbolimbo like medrum stick knockand the darkness is over meknees spread wideand the water is hiding melimbolimbo like meknees spread wideand the dark ground is under medown

downdownand the drummer is calling melimbolimbo like mesun coming upand the drummers are praising meout of the darkand the dumb gods are raising meupupupand the music is saving mehotslowstepon the burning ground.

❧

The Negro Speaks of Rivers (Langston Hughes, 1919)

I’ve known rivers:I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than theflow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincolnwent down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddybosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I’ve known rivers:Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

❧

Harlem (Langston Hughes, 1951)

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry uplike a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore-- And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over-- like a syrupy sweet?